A massive wave of forced displacement is happening in West Papua, as Indonesia ramps up its military operations ahead of Christmas.

In multiple regencies, including Yahukimo, Maybrat, and Intan Jaya, thousands of West Papuans have been forced to flee into the bush by the sudden arrival of Indonesian soldiers into their villages. The entire region of Oksop has been emptied of people. As the GIDI Church said in their statement, the military is acting with total impunity, murdering innocent children and killing civilians just for having dreadlocks. Women and children are going hungry in the forest. They are in grave danger this Christmas: over 1200 Papuans have been killed due to forced displacement since 2018. According to the latest estimate by human rights defenders, over 83,000 of my people are currently displaced, refugees in their own ancestral lands.

Foreign governments should not be fooled Prabowo’s PR campaign. He is desperately seeking international legitimacy through his international tour, empty environmental pledges, and the amnesty offered to various prisoners, including eighteen West Papuans and the remaining imprisoned members of the Bali Nine.

Make no mistake: this is a pure smokescreen to distract from the violence that is already being unleashed on West Papua. Releasing a few token Papuan political prisoners has become a tradition for new Indonesian Presidents – Joko Widodo did the same with Filep Karma, one of our national heroes.  When Prabowo was elected, I said that the ghost of Suharto has returned. What is happening now – mass displacement, increased militarisation, increased deforestation in Merauke, and the restarting of the transmigration programme – is proof of that judgment. Prabowo is complicit in genocide. All he knows is war, violence, and destruction.

The division of West Papua into five new provinces under former President Widodo was the first sign that the occupation was entering a new phase. Now, Prabowo is by creating an independent military command for all five provinces, replacing the previous unified command with a new, more thorough and far-reaching system of occupation. By establishing new administrative divisions, Indonesia creates the pretext for new military posts and checkpoints. The result is the deployment of thousands more soldiers, curfews, arbitrary arrests, and human rights abuses. West Papua is under martial law.

In the Star Mountains and across the Highlands, West Papuans will mark Christmas in the bush. How can the international community trust Prabowo? He will never clean the blood from his hands for his crimes as a General in West Papua and East Timor. Now, as President, he is new creating a new regime of brutality in West Papua.

Benny Wenda 
Interim President
ULMWP Provisional Government